In this last part of our Spring cleanup series we will discuss renaming fields. This requires the most caution and forethought, but is also advisable to ensure that new users can understand your textbases. All too often we find clients who have maintained the same textbases for years and years and see no problem with fields named AU, TI etc. It’s pretty easy to guess that these stand for Author and Title in a library catalogue, but what about some of the other abbreviations that may date from much earlier versions of Inmagic when there were limits to the field name length. We came across a client with an LCCN field, i.e. Library of Congress Control Number. A new non library person started data entry and guessed that this field was an abbreviation for their shelf location, thus creating a horrendous mixture of entries. (We always recommend adding Automatic Date type fields for RecordCreated and RecordModified which can make cleanup of this type of mistake a bit easier.) Field names in the current version of DB/TextWorks have a 20 character limit which is usually ample to describe the contents. We recommend not including any spaces, but visually separating words with caps or underscores as in PublicationDate or Project_Number. If you have several databases with similar fields, you should consider giving them consistent names.

If you make changes to a field name, all DB/TextWorks query screens and form boxes simply use the new values and continue to function. Any box labels that were taken directly from the field names will however continue to show the old values.

As a precaution we always recommend making a backup or copy of the textbase before making any significant modifications. Next, determine if there are any textbases linked to the one you wish to change. Linked fields in a Secondary textbase can be identified by viewing the Textbase Information under the Display tab, but the fields that are linked to are not shown in the primary textbase information, so you do need to understand if there are relationships between your textbases before renaming fields.

As mentioned in Part 2 on changing textbase elements, extra care must be taken if you have WebPublisher PRO, as query screens or canned searches will reference field names and will not update automatically if you edit these. Changing field names may also break forms or query screens with embedded scripts. Scripting capabilities were introduced in DB/TextWorks version 4 so pre 2001 textbases are not likely to include any. More recent textbases from Inmagic such as those in the Library Module, and those provided by Andornot will include some scripting.

If your textbases don’t have linked textbases, scripts or web access, then renaming fields can be straightforward and a great way to rationalize your textbase to make it easier for others to understand.

If you don’t feel comfortable doing this renaming cleanup yourself, contact us and we can help you on a consulting basis.

We hope you have enjoyed this four-part series on spring cleaning your databases – please let us know if there are other topics you would like us to cover!

Usually Inmagic DB/TextWorks textbases can function for many years without any intervention or problems. However if you do ever see a “Stop: textbase is in an inconsistent state….” message, please do NOT keep working in it! We have had clients tell us that they just ignore that message not realizing that the textbase might be corrupt. Frequently this message is just caused by a temporary loss of network connectivity while a record is being edited and can be fixed very quickly.

We recommend every so often running Check Textbase from Manage Textbases on a menu screen (i.e. without a textbase open). This will detect and repair problems in the textbase and your user file. The process generally takes just a few minutes for most textbases, but can take a while for very large ones. We suggest specifying Options to Repair Structural Problems and Rebuild 10 or more Damaged Indexes (depending on textbase size). If any problems are found these will be listed in the .chk file with a recommendation for action. Running Check Textbase in this manner will clear the inconsistent state message if it was just caused by a network glitch.

As part of your regular maintenance we also recommend confirming that you have a backup routine for your textbases. We have have heard some horror stories over the years. Two clients had fires, and two had floods in their buildings. One of these had no offsite backup and lost several years work. Another client had all their textbases deleted by an over zealous IT guy who didn’t know what they were and figured they weren’t important, and another client hit batch delete instead of batch modify! For many of our smaller clients without any IT support you can always simply make a backup by copying your textbases to a USB stick and taking it home with you.

The above information applies to the non-SQL version of DB/TextWorks. Clients with DB/Text for SQL versions should ensure their IT staff are aware of the recommendations in the Administrators Guide available from the Inmagic extranet.

For more information, check out the Help file built in to DB/TextWorks, or the printable PDFfor version 13. If you run Check Textbase and need help implementing the recommendations, please contact Inmagic Support if you have a maintenance contract, or we can help you on a consulting basis.

Now that you have successfully cleaned up the various folders with your textbases, it’s time to turn your attention to the textbase elements, i.e. the query screens, forms and saved sets within your textbases.

Hopefully you have these! We hate to find that clients are using the default basic query screen and basic forms when it is possible to create your own very easily. We have watched in horror as clients scroll down long edit screens to add information to a new field they just created which of course appears at the end of their data structure. We recommend designing query screens and forms with fields placed side by side, grouped under logical headings to allow everything to be viewed at once without any need for scrolling. Additional text boxes can easily be added to all screens to provide helpful search or data entry hints. So no excuses – try designing some forms – it’s not hard!

On the other end of the spectrum are clients who have created so many forms it’s not obvious which are the ones in common usage. So they may have Report-Test or Label3 or QBE_Susan etc. Regular users of the textbase may know which ones are appropriate, but think about our succession planning motive – how can you make it obvious to a new user which they should use?

You can see a listing of all the query screens, report forms and saved sets for a textbase under Maintain > Manage Textbase Elements (or Display > Textbase Information to view a printable list). This list may show more forms than from clicking the Select Form icon, as some may be for printing or web use only. Most will say (public) after the name – any that do not are visible to you only, and are stored in your personal user file (see Part 1of this spring cleanup series).

Caution: if you are using WebPublisher PRO you will want to make sure you know which forms are being used in your web interface before any deleting or renaming. If you are using menu screens or script buttons in your textbase, these too may be set to use specifically named forms. However it’s probably safe to delete ones with names such as test, report1 etc. but if in doubt, before actually deleting forms, we suggest simply renaming them. They can then be renamed back if it is found they are still in use. Under Manage Textbase Elements there is a Rename option. We recommend keeping the same name prefaced with an x. This means they will drop to the bottom of the list and it is clear that that they are pending deletion at some point. You can also create a backup of all your forms first by selecting all of them (Shift click) and choosing Export to create an .xpf file.

It is good practice to note additional information in the Description line when you save a form, such as how it is sorted, if it is designed for a specific label size or for a particular function. This can be invaluable when trying to ascertain years later why a form was created. We also recommend naming your forms consistently starting with an indication of how they are used, i.e. print only forms prefaced with Print as in the screenshot above.

For more information, check out the Help file built in to DB/TextWorks, or the printable PDFfor version 13. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this cleanup yourself or would like assistance designing forms or query screens, contact us and we can help you on a consulting basis.

Our next post in this series will cover maintaining your textbases in good health.

What might happen if you win the lottery? Will your successor be able to understand how to use your Inmagic DB/TextWorks textbases? In this series of posts we’ll help you rationalize your files, textbases and forms plus provide suggestions for regular maintenance of your textbases.

In this Part 1 of the series we discuss how to cleanup folders and directories which may have become cluttered with multiple copies and backups of textbases and related files. Here therefore are some tips to help you figure out what is safe to delete.

What are all those files and what do they do?

Each DB/TextWorks database consists of a number of files; how many depends on whether you have the version for a non-SQL or SQL platform. The SQL version, (file extensions shown in parentheses below), uses Microsoft SQL Server as the data store for the actual records.

On a network install, you may also have .slt files which show who has a textbase open. If you have a thesauri there will be .tml files, which prevent more than one person at a time modifying thesaurus records. You may also have an .ini file for some applications.

What can I get rid of?

Generally the following are temporary working files created as you perform various functions:

.chk

Report created after running Check Textbase

.dmp

Exported records

.x01 etc.

Exception files from imports

.tbb (.cbb)

Exported textbase structure definition

.xpf or .xpq

Exported forms and query screens

These can usually be safely deleted unless there is a need to keep backups of the records or forms at some point in time. If so, we suggest moving these files to a specific backup folder named appropriately to indicate the date and purpose.

How can I tell if it’s an old or defunct textbase?

We suggest doing a search across your network files for all *.tba or *.cba (SQL version) files. You can use the Search or Find tool in Windows Explorer for this. This can have surprising results if you’ve had DB/TextWorks for many years! It’s easy to create a new textbase or make a copy of an existing one to test out a new idea, but all too often these tests are never deleted. Usually once you open these textbases you can search and see if there are only a few records. If there is no automatic date created field, we suggest looking at the log file to determine how long ago data was last added or modified to help determine current usage. For clients with multiple users and multiple textbases, we have a sample database inventory textbase to help you document this cleanup process. Contact us if you are interested in obtaining a copy - it’s free for existing clients.

What about all these .tbu, .tbs and .idi files?

These are all User Files and are specific to each person who is using each textbase in DB/TextWorks. The .tbu contains “private” textbase elements such as forms and saved sets. The .tbs file stores scripting information and the .idi file stores your last used settings, such as the window size and position, and your most recent batch modification or import settings. Ideally these should be stored in a personal User Files folder on the network for each user so that there are no conflicts and to ensure that they are backed up. You can also store them on your PC workstation if it’s backed up. However if you want to keep these settings you’ll need to remember to copy those files over if you get a new PC.

You can easily move these personal user files to a more appropriate location under Tools > Options. We highly recommend checking where they are now located for each active user and rationalizing these settings. You can then safely delete any remaining .tbu, .tbs and .idi files if they are currently cluttering up your textbases folders.

For more information on any of these files, check out the Help built into DB/TextWorks or the printable PDFfor version 13. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this cleanup yourself, contact us and we can help you on a consulting basis.

The Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge, Alberta, uses Inmagic DB/TextWorks, WebPublisher PRO and the Andornot Starter Kit to manage its archival, museum and library collections. The archival and library collections have been searchable through the Galt website for sometime, and recently, the museum artifacts collection was added as well.

The latest addition, the artifacts collection, contains records for over 12,000 items collected over the past 50 years, reflecting the culture and history of Lethbridge and southwestern Alberta. Photographs are available online for about 10% of the collection right now, but more are being added all the time.

Collections Technician Kevin MacLean and his small team of assistants, interns and volunteers take care to go beyond the physical acquisition of an artifact: they also collect the stories of the people it belonged to and its significance to them. Now, these artifacts and related stories are accessible beyond the walls of the museum, a goal the Galt staff have finally realized with this project.

The three search sites share a common look and feel, with colour-coding to match sections of the website.

Canned queries guide users to popular topics, while quick and advanced search screens, with browsable indexes, allow them to find relevant results.

Search results are displayed in a functional, easy to view layout with simple navigation through records and back to search pages.

A selection list allows users to save records as they browse, then email, save or print the list, as well as request more information on the items from Galt staff.

On the server, each time an image is requested for display in search results, the Andornot Image Handler dynamically generates a thumbnail or enlargement, on-the-fly, from the master image. This saves time over manually creating each needed size.

Contact us for help making your artifact collection searchable using the Andornot Starter Kit for Inmagic software, or other search systems.